Hipmunk creeps up on 1M mobile downloads, integrates calendars

Travel startup Hipmunk is about to hit a nice, round milestone in its quest to upend competitors like Kayak and Orbitz: a million downloads of its mobile applications for Android and iOS.

That’s up from 400,000 downloads of its apps in January, the company said. And it’s introducing a new feature Thursday that should push it past the million mark.

Hipmunk's updated app includes calendar integration.

The company is updating its apps today to integrate users’ calendars into their flight and hotel searches. Pull up Hipmunk on your phone or tablet, search for an airplane flight and it will show you whether any events on your calendar conflict with your travel plans.

For those concerned about privacy, your calendar information never leaves your mobile device. Hipmunk just checks with any calendars you have on your default calendar app and maps the results to your search.

“It seems like such a no-brainer, especially when you’re searching for flights,” said Danilo Campos, head of mobile efforts, at Hipmunk’s SoMa office. “We had a unique opportunity where we could exploit that data, make everyone really happy in the process, and not send user data anywhere.”

Calendar results will also show up in hotel searches. If you’re flying into town for a meeting, and your meeting’s location is included in your calendar entry, Hipmunk will plot your meeting on the map of hotels you’re looking at. The idea is that you might want a hotel that’s close to your meeting.

“Before, you would need to flip from your calendar app, to your maps app, to your hotel app. It would be a very painful experience,” Campos said. “We’ve been able to compress it down to a single view.”

The Android and iOS apps are being updated simultaneously, with some minor differences. The Android app includes a “no conflicts” button that lets you hide any conflict with your calendar, for example.

Hipmunk co-founder Adam Goldstein said most people continue to make travel plans at their desktops, where Hipmunk has a robust Web app. But the mobile app’s features are rapidly gaining parity with the main site, he said, and in time the company will likely introduce some apps first to the apps.

“Mobile in general is a big priority for us,” said Goldstein, who launched Hipmunk in 2009 with Reddit co-founder Steve Huffman. “Someday, I’m sure everyone will be comfortable booking travel on their phone. Until then, we try to give people both options.”